Rewriting - sequence and act bridges

by Alexandra Sokoloff 

I don’t know what it is, but my family’s Christmas gatherings always seem to  involve aliens in some way. Possibly stems from all those years we spent road-tripping on (the former) Route 66. 

This year it was watching CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (again).

I haven’t seen the film in a while and it turns out to be a great example of a concept I’m always trying to get across to this college film class I’m teaching: act and sequence transitions. To get across the idea of the Three-Act, Eight Sequence structure, I show them films to illustrate that accomplished filmmakers often use a recurring image or device to indicate the end of one sequence and the beginning of another (not always for every sequence, but VERY frequently for the transitions between the four acts). 

Since my New Year is all about rewriting, two different projects, I wanted to talk about some examples today and hopefully get some from you all.

Some are very obvious, like:

- The still shots of wedding invitations that set up each act of FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL

 - The six stages of a con that set up the sequences of THE STING: The Set-Up, The Hook, The Take, The Wire, The Shut-Out and The Sting ... and which are delineated by still paintings on title cards.  (Yes, that’s just six – the first sequence is the incident that compels Hooker to want to do the long con to begin with, and the eighth is the wrap-up.)

- The old newsreel-style shots of the map of the globe with the superimposed plane flying and the red line marking the journey and the sequence transitions in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

Others are more subtle but easy to spot if you train yourself to look, like:

- The long overhead shots of Jamie Foxx’s cab cruising through the streets of L.A. between each sequence of COLLATERAL. (There are similar long shots of the spaceship Nostromo gliding silently through the vast emptiness of space that mark the sequence breaks in the first ALIEN)

- The shots of seasons (fall, winter, spring) and specific holiday decorations in the Great Hall that delineate the sequences and acts in HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE.

- Another film I just love, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, cuts away from the main story of Westley and Buttercup to the framing story of the grandfather reading the book to his grandson at each sequence and act break - slyly demonstrating the power of cliffhangers.

- And in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, after the climax of each sequence, there is a cut to a short scene of the team of scientists, led by a mouth-watering François Truffaut (just saying) racing to yet another spot on the globe to investigate another UFO sighting.  These scenes appear every fifteen minutes like clockwork – not as blatant as still shots and title cards, but equally effective as the demarcation between sequences and acts.

Personally, I just love how these bridges, or markers, or transitions, or whatever you feel like calling them, create a symmetry and forward momentum to a story. It signals an audience that the story is moving into a different phase, and gives the audience a chance to take a breath and mentally prepare, even for a second, for the next stage of the journey.

I think it’s really useful to train yourself to look for how your favorite storytellers might be using these transitions, on screen and on the page. It will get you thinking about how you might use some kind of bridge scene yourself. It’s not that you HAVE to do it, not at all!  But maybe there’s a hint of some perfect recurring transition scene already in your first draft that you can build on to create a whole series of transitions that will give your story that perfect symmetry and momentum.  Something to think about!

In novels, one of the most obvious act bridges is dividing your book into Part I, Part II, and Part III.   Sounds simplistic but it really works to give the reader a breath and a moment to reflect before starting a new action. Another common bridge is to write sequences from different characters' points of view (my favorite example being Barbara Kingsolver's POISONWOOD BIBLE.

So do you have any examples for me?

And Happy New Year to everyone!  May all your writing dreams come true this year.

- Alex

Nanowrimo Prep - narrative structure cheat sheet

by Alexandra Sokoloff

There really is something about fall for me, this huge jolt of energy.   Thank God, because I have a lot to do.   This week I did my taxes and a book proposal at the same time, two activities that should never be performed simultaneously.  (At some point the brain does explode, doesn’t it?)  This week I have to write another book proposal while doing edits for another book, and go to Houston to teach a workshop. 

In the middle of all of this there is another book that I am dying, just dying to get done.  This is why I’m a big fan of Nanowrimo. Even though, truthfully, like every full-time writer I have a Nano-like writing schedule most of the time, there’s something about having a designated month where all kinds of people are putting in this kind of insane writing time with the insane goal of having some rough approximation of a book at the end of it that makes it all feel okay, somehow, even doable.

For the last couple of years I’ve been doing a Nano Prep series on my blog   in October,  because I reel in horror at the idea of people just sitting down on Day 1 and starting to write to see what comes out.  The chances of getting a viable book out of that process seem – slim.

I may finally have gone to the opposite extreme, though.  The more I analyze structure, the more it seems to me that every story has the same underlying structure.   In previous years I’ve come up with a checklist of story elements, and last year I really expanded on that one.  But in the last month of some short workshops and my Nano Prep, I’ve actually tried to put the most important of those story elements into an almost narrative, a cheat sheet for story development.

So I’m running it by you all today, to see if it makes sense to anyone but me.

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Narrative Structure Cheat Sheet

Act I:

We meet the Hero/ine in the Ordinary World.  

S/he has:

   --  a Ghost or Wound

   --  a strong Desire

   --  Special Skills

And an Opponent, or several, which is standing in the way of her getting what s/he wants, and possibly wants exactly the same thing that s/he wants

She gets a Call to Adventure: a phone call, an invitation, a look from a stranger, that invites her to change her life.

That impulse may be blocked by a

    --  Threshold Guardian

    --   And/or the Opponent

    --   And/or she is herself reluctant to take the journey.

But she overcomes whatever opposition,

   -- Gathers Allies and the advice of a Mentor

    -- Formulates a specific PLAN to get what s/he wants

And Crosses the Threshold Into the Special World.

Act II:1

The hero/ine goes after what s/he wants, following the PLAN

The opponent blocks and attacks, following his or her own PLAN to get what s/he wants

The hero/ine may now:

     -- Gather a Team

     -- Train for battle (in a love story this can be shopping or dating)

     -- Investigate the situation.

     -- Pass numerous Tests

All following the Plan, to achieve the Desire.

No matter what genre, we experience scenes that deliver on the Promise of the Premise – magic, flying, sex, mystery, horror, thrills, action.

We also enjoy the hero/ine’s Bonding with Allies or Falling in Love

And usually in this Act the hero/ine is Winning.

Then at the Midpoint, there is a big Reversal, Revelation, Loss or Win that is a Game-Changer.

Act II:2

The hero/ine must Recover and Recalibrate from the game-changer of the Midpoint.

And formulate a New Plan

Neither the Hero/ine nor the Antagonist has gotten what they want, and everyone is tired and pissed.

Therefore they Make Mistakes

And often Cross a Moral Line

And Lose Allies

And the hero/ine, or if not the hero/ine, at least we, are getting the idea (if we didn’t have it before) that the hero/ine might be WRONG about what s/he wants.

Things begin to Spiral Out of Control

And get Darker and Darker (even if it’s funny)

Until everything crashes in a Black Moment, or All is Lost Moment, or Visit to Death.

And then, out of that compete despair comes a New Revelation for the hero/ine

That leads to a New Plan for the Final Battle.

Act III

The Heroine Makes that last New Plan

Possibly Gathers the Team (Allies) again

Possibly briefly Trains again

Then Storms the Opponent’s Castle (or basement)

The Team (if there is one) Attacks the Opponent on his or her own turf, and all their

     --- Skills are tested.

     --- Subplots are resolved,

     --- and secondary Opponents are defeated in a satisfying way.

Then the Hero/ine goes in alone for the final battle with the Antagonist.  Her Character Arc, everything s/he’s learned in the story, helps her win it.

The Hero/ine has come Full Circle

And we see the New Way of Life that s/he will live.

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Let me know if this makes sense, or is at all helpful, and otherwise, who else is doing Nano?  And for the happy, sane, non-writers, do you get that Back to School feeling about fall, too?  What are you doing with that burst of energy?

- Alex 

One of My Favorite Times of Year

by Brett Battles

One of my favorite times of year has always been the fall. Not because of the weather and beautiful colors (though I LOVE them), and not because it’s football season (go 9ers, despite the slow start). It’s because it’s the start of the new network television season.

Now, things have been changing for a while on the television front. There was a time when there was just the three big networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC), and they would go ALL OUT to get viewers attention for their fall lineups. They’d do huge image campaigns, use catch jingles (often based on older song…anyone remember “Still the One” for ABC?), and otherwise pull out all the stops. This kind of all out blitzkrieg marketing pretty much stopped sometime in the late 90s. I actually worked on one of the last ones for ABC…it was the one where we had these giant As, Bs & Cs that the cast members of the various new and returning shows could play on and we filmed them. It was fun, but, honestly, there’ve been better campaigns and worse.

Anyway, campaigns weren’t what I wanted to talk about, the point I was trying to make was that the disappearance of campaign happened because the networks were no longer the only game in town, and the networks fall lineups lost some of their luster because there were so many other choices out there.

Why? Cable, of course. At first channels like FX and TNT and SY FY (then SCI FI) were just places for old movies and network returns, but then cable channels started branching out and running first run programs on their own. And they did this with zero regard to the usual show launch season.

The Fall.

That really changed things.

Nowadays shows are launched year round – January, May, June, whenever a show is ready to go (that’s not completely true, but close enough).  

But while the networks might have lost some of their edge, they have hung on to their fall tradition (admittedly with some spring shows thrown in and an emerging summer season). And since this still represents a majority of new show debuts, I still look forward to it.

You see, to me, there are few things on television more interesting than the pilot episode of a series. This is the episode that sets everything that follows up. And, quite honestly, is often the worst episode of the whole run. That said, I love to watch pilots. I love to see how the show’s creators set up their worlds, how they introduce their characters, how they set the tone and pace for the series.

I think watching these is a great exercise for writers no matter what genre or type of writing you might do. It’s a quick way to see multiple creative efforts to bring new realities to life in a relatively short period.

More times than not these newly created realities fail quickly and are yanked from the schedule. But even for the ones that do succeed, often it’s despite pretty sucky pilots.

But, as they say, you sometimes learn more from the bad than the good. So pay attention and take notes because a bad pilot is likely to have any or all of the following: cliché characters, cliché settings, cliché set-ups, and, well, just clichés, also story logic issues, undervaluation of view intelligence, poor casting choices, and just plain bad dialogue. What’s not to learn from that? (I was kidding about the taking notes part. Well, half-kidding, anyway.)

Perhaps the show pilots that have the hardest are the ones for series where each episode is basically a one-off story. In other words, what happened last week has no baring on what’s happening this week. In those cases, show producers (or, most likely, network executives) feel the necessity of establishing the ground rules of the series (who, what, where, when and why…with the occasional how thrown in) right in that very first episode. That means their shoehorning in a TON of information they seem to think you need to have now.

Sitcoms, in particular, are subject to this. And when you shoehorn something in, something else has to go. And when you shoehorn in a lot of somethings there is little room left for the show to be what its creators had envisioned. Don’t believe me? Choose a favorite series, then go back and watch the very first episode and you’re likely to see what I mean. Everything that comes after is more natural, because the show is able to breath.

Perhaps the pilots that have it easiest are the ones for series that have continuing stories, so that they don’t feel pressured to get everything out right away. In fact, some of my favorite pilots are in this category: LOST, Twin Peaks, Arrested Development, Band of Brothers…just to name a few.

But no matter how good or bad, I love pilots. They’re just…interesting to me. If you’re a writer, or just a fan of how stories are put together, I urge to watch as many of these pilots as you can. In other words, I give you permission to watch TV all week.

So, what’s your take on the first episode of a new series? Have you watched any of the ones this fall? Any loves or hates so far? And what have you learned?

The Central Action of a story

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I haven't written a craft post in a long time, it feels like.   Actually, I wonder if craft posts annoy a lot of the Murderati readers.   Sometimes you all seem much more interested in the angst posts.  I like that about this place; it's better than therapy.   Notheless, I'm all out of angst for the moment and am reverting to craft.

As I've posted here before, I'm not one of those readers who feels any obligation to finish a book I've started.   In fact, I very often sit down to read with ten or twelve books in front of me, and read the first few chapters of each before I settle on the one to read.    Much like an agent or editor, I'm sure.    If I like the opening, or the plot description, I'll give it a few chapters.   If not - discard.   On to the next.  

This is a great way to get through that pesky TBR pile, as you can imagine.

Now, this is a useful exercise for authors and aspiring authors, on a whole lot of levels.

First, it really does put you in the shoes, or chair, and mindset, of an editor or agent.  Do you really think an editor or agent, with their hundreds of TBRs a week, is giving anything their full attention (unless it's an auction, and their job depends on making the right decision about a particular book)?  

Of course they're not.   They'll start giving a book their full attention for the very same reasons YOU would - because it's their genre, it's a subject or arena that they're interested in personally, and it's well-written enough to suck them into the story.   The first two reasons are completely subjective, nothing you can do about that.   The third is completely within your control.

But - it's important for aspiring authors who are in the midst of the submission process to remember that a lot of book choice is purely, completely subjective.   And if you keep in mind that a lot, in fact most, editors and agents will discard your book simply because it doesn't appeal to them personally, you can both detach yourself from the trauma of being rejected (which you will be, repeatedly) and understand why you almost always have to make SO many submissions to score an agent and a publishing deal.

This read-and-discard exercise is also good for published authors.   It reminds me that all over the world people are doing the same thing with MY books - I get a few seconds to win them, minutes if I'm lucky, and am just as likely to be discarded as not.   More likely, actually.   For me, it's a big reminder that my most likely readers are going to be my REPEAT readers - the ones who will give me more than a few cursory seconds, who are actually looking for my books because they already know they like the genre I write in, the characters and story worlds I create, and the themes I explore.   That's a good thing to remember in a marketing sense, too, I think: Serve your core audience first.

And of course a main reason to do this is to remind yourself what hooks you about a book.   Which is going to be different for different people.   But what hooks YOU is likely to be what hooks the agent and editor you end up with, and subsequently your readers. 

It can be style, it can be suspense, it can be sex, it can be action, it can be narrative voice, it can be a character's voice... for some people it's a first line (that would not be me, I couldn't care less about the first line of a book, and in fact have been known to discard books on the basis of a too-cute or trying-too-hard first line.    I do care about the opening IMAGE.).

But if I'm liking the way a book goes enough to keep going through a chapter or two, I'll tell you the next thing that is absolutely crucial to keep me reading.

I need to know pretty quickly where the plot is going.  I want to know the author knows, and I want the author one way or another to tell me, so that I know there's a direction to all this, and I can relax and let the author take me there.    If I don't get that within the first few chapters, I get uneasy that the author has no idea where the story is going, and I toss the book.   It makes me crazy.

When I teach writing workshops, I find this is one of the hardest things for new writer to grasp.   In fact it is very, very often nearly impossible to get a new writer to describe the overall action of their story in a sentence or two.  Sometimes this is because there IS no driving action, which - in genre fiction, anyway -  is a huge problem.   But sometimes there's a perfectly clear action of the storyline, the writer just hasn't realized what it is.   Once they are able to identify it, a whole lot of extraneous scenes often can get cut, or brought into line with the action of the story, creating much more tension and suspense.

So this is why I use movies so much to teach these concepts - first because they're a more common frame of reference; there are almost always so many more movies that everyone in a room has seen than books that they have read in common.   But also because movies are a stripped-down form of storytelling and it's easier to remember and identify the main plot actions.

Last week I ended up watching 2012 (okay, so I'm a little behind).

Now, I’m sure in a theater this movie delivered on its primary objective, which was a rollercoaster ride as only Hollywood special effects can provide.   I was watching it primarly because I love apocalypse settings and John Cusack, not necessarily in that order.   But this is a movie I most likely would have walked out on in a theater, I'm definitely not recommending it, just found it a good illustration of some concepts I am always talking about.

I’m not going to be critical (except to say I was shocked and disturbed at some of the overt cruelty that went on in what was supposedly a family movie), because whether we like it or not, there is obviously a MASSIVE worldwide audience for movies that are primarily about delivering pure sensation. Story isn’t important, nor, apparently, is basic logic. As long as people keep buying enough tickets to these movies to make them profitable, it’s the business of Hollywood to keep churning them out.

But even in this rollercoaster ride of special effects and sensations, there was a clear central PLAN for an audience to hook into, a CENTRAL ACTION that drove the story. Without that plan, 2012 really would have been nothing but a chaos of special effects - as a lot of movies these days are.

PLAN and CENTRAL QUESTION (which I've talked about before, here and here) are integrally related, and I keep looking for ways to talk about it because this is such an important concept to get.

If you’ve seen this movie (and I know some of you have…), there is a point in the first act where a truly over-the-top Woody Harrelson as an Art Bell-like conspiracy pirate radio commentator rants to protagonist John Cusack about having a map that shows the location of “spaceships” that the government is stocking to abandon planet when the prophesied end of the world commences.

Although Cusack doesn’t believe it at the time, this is the PLANT (sort of camouflaged by the fact that Woody is a nutjob), that gives the audience the idea of what the PLAN OF ACTION will be: Cusack will have to go back for the map in the midst of all the cataclysm, then somehow get his family to these “spaceships” in order for all of them to survive the end of the world.

The PLAN is reiterated, in dialogue, when Cusack gets back to his family and tells his wife basically exactly what I just said above.

And lo and behold, that’s exactly what happens – it’s not only Cusack’s PLAN, but the central action of the story, that can be summed up as a CENTRAL QUESTION: Will Cusack be able to get his family to the spaceships before the world ends? Or put another way, the CENTRAL STORY ACTION: John Cusack must get his family to the spaceships before the world ends.

Note the ticking clock, there, as well. As if the end of the world weren’t enough, the movie also starts a literal “Twenty-nine minutes to the end of the world!” ticking computer clock at, yes, 29 minutes before the end of the movie.

(Remember, I’ve said ticking clocks are dangerous because of the huge cliché factor. We all need to study structure to know what NOT to do, as well. Did I talk about the clock in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, yet? Great example of how to turn a cliche into a legitimate urgency.)

A reader/audience really needs to know what the overall PLAN is, even if they only get in a subconscious way. Otherwise they are left floundering, wondering where the hell all of this is going.

In 2012, even in the midst of all the buildings crumbling and crevasses opening and fires booming and planes crashing, we understand on some level what is going on:

- What does the protagonist want? (OUTER DESIRE) To save his family.

- How is he going to do it? (PLAN) By getting the map from the nutjob and getting his family to the secret spaceships (that aren’t really spaceships).

- What’s standing in his way? (FORCES OF OPPOSITION) About a billion natural disasters as the planet caves in, an evil politician who has put a billion dollar pricetag on tickets for the spaceship, a Russian Mafioso who keeps being in the same place at the same time as Cusack, and sometimes ends up helping, and sometimes ends up hurting. (Was I the only one queased out by the way all the Russian characters were killed off, leaving only the most obnoxious kids on the planet?)

Here’s another example, from a classic movie:

At the end of the first sequence of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (which is arguably two sequences in itself, first the action sequence in the cave in South America, then the university sequence back in the US), Indy has just taught his archeology class when his mentor, Marcus, comes to meet him with a couple of government agents who have a job for him (CALL TO ADVENTURE). The agents explain that Hitler has become obsessed with collecting occult artifacts from all over the world, and is currently trying to find the legendary Lost Ark of the Covenant, which is rumored to make any army in possession of it invincible in battle.

So there’s the MACGUFFIN – the object that everyone wants, and the STAKES – if Hitler’s minions (THE ANTAGONISTS) get this Ark before Indy does, the Nazi army will be invincible.

And then Indy explains his PLAN to find the Ark - his old mentor, Abner Ravenwood, was an expert on the Ark and had an ancient Egyptian medallion on which was inscribed the instructions for using the medallion to find the hidden location of the Ark.

So when Indy packs his bags for Nepal, we understand the entire OVERALL ACTION of the story: Indy is going to find Abner (his mentor) to get the medallion, then use the medallion to find the Ark before Hitler’s minions can get it.

And even though there are lots of twists along the way, that’s really it: the basic action of the story.

The PLAN and CENTRAL QUESTION – or CENTRAL ACTION, if it helps to call it that instead, is almost always set up – and spelled out - by the end of the first act. Can it be later? Well, anything’s possible, but the sooner a reader or audience understands the overall thrust of the story action, the sooner they can relax and let the story take them where it’s going to go. So much of storytelling is about you, the author, reassuring your reader or audience that you know what you’re doing, so they can relax and let you drive.

So here's a craft exercise, if you want to play along.   For practice take a favorite movie or book (or two or three) and identify the CENTRAL ACTION - describe it in a few sentences.   Then try it with your own story.  

For example, in my new book, BOOK OF SHADOWS, here's the set up: the protagonist, Homicide detective Adam Garrett, is called on to investigate a murder of a college girl which looks like a Satanic killing.   Garrett and his partner make a quick arrest of a classmate of the girl's, a troubled Goth musician.   But Garrett is not convinced of the boy's guilt, and when a practicing witch from nearby Salem insists the boy is innocent and there have been other murders, he is compelled to investigate further.

So the CENTRAL ACTION of the story is Garrett using the witch and her specialized knowledge of magical practices to investigate the murder on his own, all the while knowing that she is using him for her own purposes and may well be involved in the killing.

If you're working on a story now, at what point in your book does the reader have a clear idea of where the story is going?   If you can't identify that, is it maybe a good idea to layer that in so the reader will have an idea where the story is going?

And for extra credit – give us some examples of movies or books that didn’t seem to have any central action or plan at all. Those negative examples are sometimes the best way to learn!

Or just tell us today - What hooks YOU about a book?   What will make you toss it across the room and go on to the next?

(And Happy Solstice on Monday, everyone... use the Force.)

- Alex

Breaking through the Matrix

by Alexandra Sokoloff

The Matrix is a movie I've been thinking about a lot as I work on my new book.   Not just because the story pattern of my book is a Chosen One story - not as blatantly so as The Matrix is, but thera are some crossovers, especially the strong Mentor/Student relationship.

But also, as I've written about here recently, I've been doing a lot of inner work and exploration, and The Matrix is just overflowing with enlightenment metaphors and imagery from different spiritual traditions.   I screened the film for a workshop I was teaching in Sonoma recently and people were just amazed at how many religious references they could see, once they were actually looking for thematic images.

These days I am very enamored of the idea that what we think of as reality is just a construct designed to enslave us and prevent us from seeing the world as it really is.   And people as they really are.  

(Of course as writers we break through the Matrix every day and create our own realities.)

But I'm also inspired by how The Matrix, a wildly popular sci fi action/adventure thriller, managed to get away with so much spirituality.   The interesting thing is that I don't think you have to understand the spiritual references to feel that there's a transcendent and important struggle going on in that film.   The filmmakers were passionately committed to telling a spiritual story, and it plays for millions of people, on many different levels.   Now THAT is something to aspire to.

So since I'm in teaching mode (doing a workshop for First Coast Romance Writers in Jacksonville this weekend...), here's my first act analysis of The Matrix (which I'll continue on my own blog next week.)

Genre-wise, The Matrix crosses Sci-fi with Action.   But the KIND of story it is, is a King Arthur, Chosen One, or Messiah story, like Harry Potter (all of them) and Star Wars (the original, and original trilogy) and The Lord of the Rings.

While the question about Harry Potter is:  “Is he good or is he bad?”  - the big question about Neo in the Matrix is – “Is he or is he not The One?”    The question is voiced in the first few lines of the movie:  “Morpheus believes he is The One.”   “Do you?... You don’t, do you?”

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The Matrix, written and directed by Larry & Andy Wachowski

ACT ONE 

SEQUENCE ONE:   SET UP   (17 min).

OPENING IMAGE – computer code.     This of course is a reference to what The Matrix actually is: a virtual reality program.    (And btw, it’s the intro to the MAIN ANTAGONIST – which is the enslaving Matrix).   (FORCES OF ANTAGONISM).

We hear Trinity and Cypher talking; they are watching someone, and Cypher asks her the question, “Do you think he is The One?”

Trinity has a sudden suspicion the phone is tapped and hangs up.     (We don’t know this right now, but this is a betrayal by the Judas figure Cypher, a secondary villain (FORCES OF ANTAGONISM).

(It may be a little early to say this, but what the hell.   The name “Trinity” of course underlines the trinity that will form of Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity – the archetypal Father, Mother, Son (which later patriarchal religions defeminized, removing the Mother from the equation).  

Cut to: outside a dark building, cops arrive for a bust, but are outranked by three bizarre AGENTS: Smith, Jones and Brown   (FORCES OF ANTAGONISM).  Agent Smith is one of the great screen villains, thanks to this triplet conceit, a fantastically robotic (and demented) performance by Hugo Weaving and some truly inspired costume choices – everything about these guys is a little off, from the spiral cords behind their ears to the impeccable but wrongly placed tie tacs.   We get a sense of the power of this adversary when the street cop says disparagingly about Trinity, “I think my men can handle one little girl,”  and Agent Smith replies -  “Your men are already dead.” 

His words are prophetic:  we cut to the cops bursting in on Trinity, seated in a dark room at a computer - and see her kill all of them with superhuman martial arts moves.    (We’ve see this all-knowing-villain technique of predicting action used with Lecter in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS as well.)

Trinity is a strong, sexy woman, but what makes her instantly relatable is that she is frightened – when Morpheus calls her and says there are agents after her, we can see her fear.   Later in the scene she talks to herself to force herself to keep moving.  That brings a reality and emotion to the action scenes that is often missing in this genre.

Morpheus tells her she needs to focus and get to a phone at a certain location.  (SET UP of phone as portal).

There is a SET PIECE chase:   The agents chasing Trinity through the corridors and stairways of a the dark building, then over the rooftops, again with superhuman moves.  The production design of this scene is thematic -  it looks like the inside of a computer or machine, a visual image of the Matrix.

Trinity gets to the phone booth with the ringing phone and picks up just as the phone booth is hit by a garbage truck driven by Agent Smith.   But Trinity has disappeared from the rubble.    (Phone as PASSAGEWAY to the special world).    The agents say she made it out but it doesn't matter because the informant is real.    The target is Neo.    (7 min)

Cut to Neo’s apartment.  Neo is asleep in front of numerous computers running a search on computer terrorist Morpheus and The Matrix.  (Important background info which is actually very easily missed; it should have been given a bit more time.)     (This is a THEMATIC INTRO to main character – he’s asleep, and an underlying spiritual theme of the film – as is the point of all mystical traditions, the goal of earthly life is to wake up to reality – ie. enlightenment.).

This opening dialogue with Neo is so thematic it’s worth looking at the whole scene:   I’ve underlined the thematic references.

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From The Matrix, written by Larry & Andy Wachowski

In Neo's apartment. He is asleep at his computer, with headphones on. On his computer screen, we see he is running a search on a man named Morpheus. Suddenly on his computer screen appear the words 'Wake up, Neo.' He sits up, and stares at his computer screen.

Neo : What?

On the computer, now appears 'The Matrix has you...'

Neo : What the hell?

On the computer, now appears 'Follow the white rabbit...'

Neo : Follow the white rabbit?

He presses the 'esc' key repeatedly, no effect. the computer comes up with one last message : 'Knock knock, Neo.' There is a loud knock at his door, and he jumps. He stares at the door, and then back at his computer screen. it's now blank.

Neo : .....Who is it?

Choi : It's Choi.

Neo : Yeah...yeah...you're two hours late.

Choi : I know, it's her fault.

Choi gestures towards DuJour.

Neo : You got the money?

Choi : Two grand.

Neo :Hold on.

Neo goes into his apartment, shuts the door, and opens a book, takes out a CD rom, and goes back to the door, handing the CD to Choi.

Choi : Hallelujah. You're my saviour, man. My own personal Jesus Christ.

Neo :You get caught using that...

Choi : Yeah, I know. This never happened, you don't exist.

Neo : Right.

Choi : Something wrong, man? You look a little whiter than usual.

Neo : My computer....it..you ever have that feeling where you don't know if you're awake or still dreaming?

Choi : Mm, all the time. It's called Mescaline. It's the only way

to fly. Hey, it sounds to me like you need to unplug, man.

------------

The Matrix is all about waking up, about what reality is, and about Neo as the potential savior of the world, which has been enslaved by a virtual reality program.  And escaping.   And going down the rabbit hole.

Well, that above is maybe a four minute scene,  and look how blatant the themes are.    It spells out the entire story.   And yet it works on the surface level as well, an audience isn’t stopping to think, "Oh, there’s a theme, and there’s a theme, and yet another theme."

(If there’s anything I learned from screenwriting it’s that you can JUST SAY IT.   And it generally works better if you just do.)

The scene ends with Choi inviting Neo to come out with them to a club, and while Neo initially declines because he has to work the next day (SET UP), he sees DuJour has a white rabbit tattoo and he follows them to the club,

As Neo stands alone in a bondage club  (he’s in bondage to the Matrix, right?)  Trinity comes up to him and in a very hot scene leans in to speak the entire dialogue of the scene into his ear.   She seems to know everything about him, great start to a love story.    She says:  “You’re looking for him (Morpheus)”, but really “It’s the question that drives you.”  Neo knows the question: "What is the Matrix?"  She tells him he's in danger, and they’re coming for him.   (ALLY and LOVE INTEREST).

The club music segues into alarm – Neo wakes is in his own bed.   (THEME:  asleep or awake?  What is reality?)

(12 min)

Cut to software company.     Now we see Neo in his other persona as Thomas Anderson, an office drone.    This is the very ORDINARY WORLD.     He’s late for work and dressed down by his boss in the boss’s office – with noisy window washers outside the plate glass window (PLANT).   More thematic dialogue from the boss - "You're not special"  (THEME – is he or isn’t he?) .   “It’s time to make a choice.”

Back at his cubicle Neo receives a FedEx package containing a cell phone, which rings. It's Morpheus.  (And isn’t this every working man’s fantasy – being called out of cubicle world for a special mission?).  Morpheus tells Neo the agents have come for him and, seeming all-seeing, gives him instructions on how to elude them.   He instructs Neo to go out on the window washers’ scaffold.   (PAYOFF of noisy window washers).  Neo is clearly terrified (links him with Trinity, their vulnerability) , but obeys, crawling out on the precarious scaffold…

Then he doesn't take the final step to get on the girder which would allow him to escape - afraid of falling/taking the jump.   The cell phone falls and Neo whispers, “I can’t do this.”   (THEME, and introduces the character’s FEAR:   He can’t do it.   Which will become our FEAR:   He’s not The One.).

So Neo fails the first TEST, setting up the question of:  “Is he really The One?”   (All right, just pretend it isn’t Keanu Reeves and go with it.)

On the ground floor, Trinity watches the Agents take Neo away.  (17 min)

SEQUENCE TWO:   (18 min.)

(Might as well call this sequence:  The Invitation  - Neo gets two of them, actually, one from Agent Smith, and then another diametrically opposed invite from Morpheus.)

Agents are questioning Neo in an interrogation room.   They have a comically thick file on him.   They know Neo's real name and hacker alias.  Agent Smith tells him:   "One of these lives doesn't have a future." But Agent Smith is willing to cut a deal – Neo’s freedom for his help catching Morpheus.  Neo gives him the finger and demands his phone call.  Agent Smith tells him, “What good is a phone call if you cannot speak?”  Neo’s lips literally fuse together so he can’t talk;  the agents hold him down and release a mechanical bug which crawls into him through his navel.   (Rape image which will be repeated.).

(21 min)

Again, Neo wakes in his own bed, screaming.   His mouth is normal.   (What is real?)   The phone rings – it’s Morpheus again, wanting to set up a meeting.   Morpheus says that the agents have underestimated how important Neo is.   But Morpheus has been looking for Neo his entire life:   Neo is The One.

(Btw - "The One" is a very layered concept, here - "The One" is the literal translation of the old Biblical word for "God".   It is the plural form of One - ie. "Many in One" or "Us".  In other words, the implication is that Neo is ALL of us, and his task in this journey, breaking through the Matrix, is our task.)

Trinity, Apoc, and very androgynous Switch pick Neo up under a bridge and hold a gun on him.   When Neo protests, Switch says it’s their way or the highway.   When Neo starts to get out of the car, Trinity asks him to trust her, and he stays.   (Note the waterfall off the underpass in this scene – a birth canal image which will be repeated.   Bridges of course are symbols of transitions).

Trinity scans him in another quasi-rape moment, zaps the bug and pulls it out.    It’s a real bug when she takes it out, but when she throws it out of the car, a mechanical device lands on the pavement.   (REAL?  NOT REAL?)

(24 min)

They take Neo to a crumbling, vacant, Gothic hotel.   In a corridor outside a room, Trinity tells Neo to tell Morpheus the truth – “He knows more than you can possibly imagine.”   (BUILD UP TO CHARACTER).

Neo meets the very charismatic Morpheus in a very Gothic, crumbling room.   (MEETING THE MENTOR).   They sit in two high backed chairs in front of a standing mirror to talk.    Morpheus wears mirrored shades which reflect two Neos – a visual that will be repeated several times.    Alice in Wonderland theme continues as Morpheus says, “You must feel like Alice…. Tumbling down the rabbit hole.”   Morpheus goes on cryptically:   "You want to know what The Matrix is.    The Matrix is everywhere. You are a slave.”    Then he offers Neo a choice of a red pill or a blue pill.    If he takes the red pill, he will go back to his life and believe what he wants to believe.   If he takes the blue one, he will see the truth.   But, Morpheus warns, all he is promising is the truth.   Neo takes the blue pill to continue.   (Great, unique PASSAGEWAY INTO SPECIAL WORLD).   Neo notices the mirror is cracked and reflects two of him.   It looks very much like he is starting to trip, not that I would know anything about it.    When he reaches to touch the glass, the mirror becomes liquid and envelops him, while Morpheus' group tries to trace him.   (With a steampunk kind of machine powered by a battery).

Thematic – is this really happening or a drug-induced hallucination?

(28 min)

Neo wakes up naked and bald in a podlike tank of goo, connected to tubes.   He unplugs himself and lifts the lid of the pod to look out on a vast, endless hive of pods, all with naked bald humans sleeping inside.   (SETPIECE).   (THEME/IMAGE SYSTEM -  I might be stretching here, but there’s a lotuslike appearance to this whole pod system,  the pods as flower petals, the lotus in muddy water.   Another enlightenment image).   A mechanical insectoid thing darts down and ejects NEO from the pod, dropping him into a watery canal.   Neo sees a bright light descending and is hoisted up into Morpheus’s hovercraft.

This is an image like birth, and also like a reverse baptism – Morpheus of course being throughout a John the Baptist figure proclaiming the coming of the Messiah (the One). 

In the hovercraft, Morpheus  (wearing clothing somewhat like dirty sackcloth, a student pointed out) welcomes Neo to the real world.   Neo passes out.   (and a MONTAGE begins… ).

SEQUENCE TWO CLIMAX

Now, this is 31 minutes in and could arguably be called the ACT ONE CLIMAX.   But when Neo wakes up in the life support tank and sees the pods of people, the real reality, it’s climactic, and we might understand that this is the real reality, but we still don’t really have a clue what that means and what the action of the story actually will be.   

So I’m thinking that the next nine minutes, even thought it’s a separate sequence, is all part of a long Act One.

SEQUENCE THREE:

The MONTAGE continues.

MONTAGE – with a lot of Neo passing out between clips.  (THEME: Awake/asleep again).

- As Neo is unconscious, Morpheus tells Trinity “We’ve found him.   He’s the One.”   Trinity doesn’t agree, but says, “I hope you’re right.” (THEME:  Is he or isn’t he?)

- Neo wakes up and finds his muscles being stimulated by electrified acupuncture needles.   He asks why his eyes hurt and Morpheus says he’s never used them.

Neo wakes up in a room of the ship, on a cot.   He pulls an IV out of his arm.   Morpheus comes in and begins to answer his questions.   First tells him that it’s not 1999 but more like 2199, but no one knows for sure.

Morpheus takes him through the ship, introduces him to the rest of the crew (MEETING THE TEAM) – Apoc, Switch, Cypher, Tank, Dozer and Mouse.    Morpheus asks Neo if he wants to know that the Matrix is – and when Neo nods, they strap him into a chair, plug a coaxial cable into the socket in his head, and Neo is suddenly inside a virtual reality program with Morpheus.    Morpheus explains (with images on a TV to illustrate) that the Matrix is a virtual reality program that simulates the world that Neo has been living in.   The real world was destroyed when humans gave birth to Artificial Intelligence and that living consciousness spawned an entire race of intelligent machines.    There was a war between humans and machines which basically destroyed the planet.   The machines had been dependent on solar power and to replace that energy source they have devised a system of extracting energy from humans – essentially using people as batteries, in pod systems like the one Neo woke up in.   New humans are not born, but bred, and dead humans are liquefied to feed the living.   (Shades of Terminator, Soylent Green…)

Morpheus sums up:  “What is The Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world, built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.”   Morpheus holds up a battery to Neo.

(THEMATIC: The Matrix is Maya – the veil of illusion).

Neo freaks out at all this, not wanting to believe – he wants to go back.   He has a panic attack, throws up and passes out.  (This will be important – sets up the desire to escape the truth of reality).

Neo wakes up in his room with Morpheus there.   Neo asks, “I can’t go back, can I?”   Morpheus says no and apologizes for the trauma – usually they would not have “freed a mind” that had reached a certain age.  But then Morpheus tells Neo of the prophecy:   When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth : 'As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.' After he died, the Oracle prophesied his return, and that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people. That is why there are those of us who have spent our entire _lives_ searching the Matrix, looking for him. I did what I did because...I believe that search is over. “

Morpheus stands and tells Neo to get some sleep – he’ll need it for his training.

40 minutes – ACT ONE CLIMAX

Now we know everything we need to know about what this story is about.  CENTRAL QUESTION:  Will Neo prove himself to be The One who can face off with the agents and destroy the Matrix?

And Morpheus’s PLAN is – to train Neo so that he can take on that mantle and destroy the Matrix.

This extra sequence is a good reminder that story structure is not by any means inflexible – if your story needs another sequence in one of the acts, just do it!   Remember the cardinal rule of storytelling:  WHATEVER WORKS.

And if you’re building a world, in sci fi or fantasy or urban fantasy, you may well want to take an extra sequence to fully set up and explain your story world.    The Matrix does this particularly well – it’s blatant exposition and back story, but with great virtual reality effects and shocking imagery, so it’s very clear without ever being boring.  

Another interesting thing to note about the structure of the Matrix is that the mentor, Morpheus, drives the action for most of the movie.   He’s the one with the PLAN, and calls the shots.   Neo is merely a tool for most of the story – but that means that we are waiting for him to take control and step into the role of The One.   A common pattern, and something to keep in mind when you’re writing a King Arthur and/or mentor story.

Okay, so a few questions.   First of course - any visual and thematic imagery I’ve missed?

But what I really want to know is - writers, do you ever - or always - incorporate spiritual themes into your writing?   And readers, do you gravitate toward books and movies with spiritual themes, regardless of genre?

- Alex